


What You Wont

by Spitshine



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (but not much), (not much of that either), A: SO MANY, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Twelfth Night, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Courtly Love, Dysphoria, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, First Time, Front-Hole Fucking, Full Shift Werewolves, Gender Related Anxiety, Honorifics, Kneeling, M/M, Masturbation, Mid-sex Negotiation, Misgendering, Mistaken Identity, Mutual Pining, Praise Kink, Q: How Many Tags Can I Tag?, Riding, Scott and Stiles are Twins, Service Kink, Slow Burn, Trans!Stiles, Trope Alert:, Troubadour!Stiles, Wooing, because SHAKESPEARE, informal D/s, who keep getting mistaken for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 11:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7312444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spitshine/pseuds/Spitshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Derek’s protests dried up in his throat as Laura’s eyes bled red, but he rolled his eyes and huffed out, “Fine,” knowing full well he was being childish and not caring. All the complaining she did about his taciturnity, and then cutting him off the one time it really mattered. Well, Laura could hardly blame him for the inevitable failure of his so-called marriage if she wouldn’t even let him talk long enough to tell her he had never once felt attraction to a woman.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Wont

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in 1602, the year “Twelfth Night” is believed to have been written. I have attempted to be reasonably accurate, history-wise, while allowing for the cultural differences of werewolves and the fact that neither Beacon Hills nor Illyria are actual towns in England—though there is a “Beacon Hill National Nature Reserve” on the southern coast. I have also, for the sake of both accessibility to the modern reader and my own sanity (seriously, fuck iambs), chosen to not write this entire thing in the style of Shakespeare, though fellow theater nerds will notice that didn’t stop me from referencing his works MOST liberally.
> 
> You can find some absolutely phenomenal art for the story here: http://twolfbigbang.tumblr.com/post/146590087848/title-what-you-wont-author-spitshine9-artist

**Prologue**

“Laura—Alpha—I don’t see why this is even necessary. I’m only the second, after all; it’s not like _you_ have a mate. And Cora-”

“-is a child,” Laura cut in smoothly. “Honestly, Derek, it’s not that difficult to understand. We need to strengthen our pack, to expand it. And no one has come seeking the bite since…”

“Why would they?” Derek muttered unhappily. “Can hardly convince them it’s a gift when all it gets them—”

“That’s quite enough, Derek! I may be your elder sister, but I am your alpha as well, and you will not disrespect me, the pack, or our parents in this way.”

Derek said nothing, his scowl deepening yet further, but he acquiesced to Laura’s authority just far enough to give one curt nod before Cora burst into the room.

“Is it true? Der-bear is going to get himself hitched?”

“You’re not helping,” Derek growled.

“Cora.” Laura’s voice was flat, unamused, but when Derek looked up, he saw a smile flitting around the corners of her mouth, which he did not appreciate. At all. “Loathe though I am to admit it, Derek’s right. You’re not helping. Please, run along and play.”

“Can I shift?” Cora bounced on her toes, brimming over with the excitement that only a were who had just mastered the full shift—and moreover, had been too young to remember the terrible darkness their shifter magic could bring upon them, Derek mused moodily—could have for their abilities.

“As long as you keep to the gardens,” Laura allowed, indulgent as always with the baby of the pack. Cora was nearing womanhood herself, but the alpha seemed not to have noticed.

Derek watched Cora bound out of the room, suppressing his own indulgent smile, before he turned back to his elder sister. “What about Peter?” He could hear the desperation in his own voice, and hated it, but couldn’t help himself. “We already know he can have children. I mean, what if we do all this and it turns out I’m sterile?”

Laura’s eloquent glare said with perfect clarity that Derek was grasping at straws now. “Frankly, I don’t think he’s stable enough. I barely see him outside of full moon runs, which he hardly has a choice in, and I know he blames himself—I worry what would happen if he took a mate, particularly a human mate.”

“You think a human would choose to ally with our pack? Even knowing… well, it’s not exactly safe.”

“I think we can try. A new packmate, even a human one would help stabilize the pack bond, and then of course—”

“—babies,” Derek lamented. “Laura, I really don’t—”

“Just try, Der. Please. Because I asked you to and,” she smiled sweetly, “because you know if you don’t, I’ll order you to.”

Derek’s protests dried up in his throat as Laura’s eyes bled red, but he rolled his eyes and huffed out, “Fine,” knowing full well he was being childish and not caring. All the complaining she did about his taciturnity, and then cutting him off the one time it really mattered. Well, Laura could hardly blame him for the inevitable failure of his so-called marriage if she wouldn’t even let him talk long enough to tell her he had never once felt attraction to a woman.

Laura watched him, soft-eyed, as he stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. “And because I worry about you, Der. It’s been so long and you still punish yourself. You’ve been too alone for too long. You need more in your heart than two sisters and most of an uncle.”

Derek could hear her perfectly well through the door; he _despised_ Laura for allowing him to pretend he didn’t, for knowing him so well, but he paused just long enough to hear every word before clattering down the stairs and out the front door, shifting as he leapt over the threshold and running to the coast on four legs.

**Chapter One**

Stiles toed off his shoes and kicked futilely through the churning water, laboring to get to the bit of floating wreckage he could just make out in the disparate light of the storm. The layered fabric of his fashionable skirts weighed him down, and—not for the first time—he cursed his family’s insistence on maintaining societal expectations.

He’d made it only a few more heaving strokes when he heard a shout from behind him. Lucky timing, that; his angry internal monologue had distracted from his attempts at swimming, and he’d begun to sink further under the waves.

“You there! If you don’t wish to drown, grab this!” He turned around just in time to catch sight of the thick hemp rope twisting through the air toward him.

He did not think to look away, however, and the rope hit him square in the face.

Of course.

At least he knew exactly where it was. He forced his cold-stiffened fingers to grab hold and did his best to pull himself along it, even as he felt it reel him in.

Blinking through the rain still buffeting down, he saw a small wooden ship’s boat and a flash of bright orange, both getting closer and closer until they filled his whole vision. With his last bit of strength, he slung one elbow over the low side of the rowboat and struggled inelegantly up, over, and in.

“Well, well,” a disapproving voice clucked. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“I believe you dragged me in, ma’am,” he choked out between wet, spluttery coughs.

“I suppose so, at that. What is your name, miss?”

Stiles grit his teeth. She didn’t know, she couldn’t be blamed, she had just _rescued_ him from an unpleasant and certain death, she didn’t know, it wasn’t like he wasn’t accustomed to that and worse in his own home… “Stiles,” he managed.

She hummed thoughtfully. “Unusual name.”

He flopped onto his back, got a good look at her. The fiery hair he’d seen through the storm, a wide leather hat, trousers and man’s coat, both cut to flatter her slim frame. “I’m an unusual boy.”

Her eyes widened just slightly. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a boy dressed in quite this fashion. Can you row?”

He gave one last cough and clambered onto a bench, grabbing a pair of oars as he did. “My family switched out my trunks. Didn’t know I only had dresses until I was already on the ship.”

“And here I though I was missing out on the latest fashion trends in…”

“Illyria,” he grunted, putting his back into it. “Though it seems to me you’re a bit ahead of the fashion trends in that area, ma’am.”

She tossed her hair. It shouldn’t have been possible, sodden as they both were, but she executed a vivacious flip of her locks nonetheless. “You may call me Lydia. Or Captain Martin, if we’re in front of my crew.”

“Your crew…?”

She smirked at him. “You can’t imagine how difficult it is to commit acts of piracy in a corset and skirts.”

“I believe I could, actually. Is your ship close?”

“See that island over my shoulder? We’re just hidden behind there. When storms come up, we take the small boats and go scouting for wreckage.”

“My apologies, then.”

“Whatever for?”

“That you didn’t find something more valuable.”

“I don’t know why you would say that. You owe me your life now; few things are more valuable than a favor of that magnitude.”

“What do you say I owe you my life, a pair of dry pants, and a line on employment in whatever town we’re closest to?”

She grinned at him with no hint of her earlier artifice. “I’ll even throw in a hot meal, a man’s shirt, and a few tricks on staying flat, how does that sound?”

“Perfect,” he sighed. “Especially the meal part. Nearly dying is much more tiring than I’d thought.”

#

A few hours later, Stiles was dry and fed and half-dressed in Lydia’s stateroom as she attempted to explain to him how to bind his chest into a shape that wouldn’t get him caught out.

“Is this making any sense?” she called out from the other side of the screen. “I really wish you would just let me—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Stiles cut in hastily. “I’m nearly there—just one—there we are.” He walked around the edge of the partition, not realizing until he saw her that he was more exposed to another person since he’d been since was young enough to be bathed by a nurse. Ah well. No help for it now. “How do I look?” he asked, gesturing vaguely at the bandages wrapped around his ribcage, the hose she’d provided for him of undyed linen.

“A bit underdressed to go asking the Hales for employment, I’d say,” she teased. “But it will do. I wish I had something a bit finer to give you but this will do to get your foot in the door, and when you do land yourself a position in their household, I’m sure they’ll dress you in their own colors.” She tossed him a plain shift before turning to her trunk to dig out a pair of serviceable maroon trousers and a doublet that matched, more or less. “Do you know how to dress yourself?”

“My parents entertained my ‘tomboy ways’ until relatively recently.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “And even after that, my twin brother generally let me borrow his clothes when I didn’t need to ‘make an appearance’ anywhere.” He pulled the shift over his head and turned to take the breeches from her. “So, yes. Bit silly of me to ask you where I might find work as a valet if I couldn’t even dress a nobleman, huh?”

“Mm. Marriage?”

“What?” He jerked up to look at her, eyes wide in his reddening face.

“Oh, calm yourself. I’m not the type to settle down. You said ‘until relatively recently.’ Your family wants you to get married, don’t they?”

“As soon as possible,” he agreed unhappily. “How did you know?”

“I wasn’t born a pirate,” she pointed out archly. “Which is lucky for you, as we’ll be taking you to shore tomorrow, assuming the skies clear, and there’s quite a bit I can tell you of the Hales in that time. Now, take the doublet and shift off, and sit.”

“I—excuse— _what?_ ”

“You need a haircut and believe me, you don’t want little bits of hair scratching down your back when you’re talking to the alpha. I’m not asking you to strip, and I’m not asking you again.”

Stiles grumbled but sat as directed. Lydia had been a godsend so far—and those shears looked sharp.

“Do you know anything about the Hales? No, don’t shake your head, are you stupid? I’m trying to cut your hair _nicely_ , so use your words.”

“I’ve never heard of them before today.”

“Their alpha, Laura, is also the duchess of Beacon Hills—that’s where your ship crashed—though she emphatically prefers the title of ‘Alpha’.” She cut off the tangled mass of his hair with one great _snick_ of the scissors, and he felt it slide down his bare back. His head felt lighter, freer, already.

“Alpha?”

“Did I not say? They’re ‘wolves. Almost the whole pack was destroyed several years back, over a dozen people all told, shifter and human both.”

“What—what happened?”

“Fire.” Lydia’s fingers combed through what was left of his hair, considering, before she resumed cutting. “The alpha won’t discuss it outside the pack. There’s those that say it was hunters, those that say it was a lover’s quarrel gone sour.”

“Some lover’s quarrel.”

“The uncle, Peter—he’s one who survived, though barely—some say he was having an affair and tried to break it off, but his mistress wouldn’t let it go. He’s a shell of his former self, though, and that’s not just a tale. Then there’s Laura, of course, and Derek, who you’ll be working for—”

“You sound confident.”

“I don’t fail in my endeavors,” she remarked coolly as she made another loud cut just next to his ear. “And then Cora, the baby; she must be close to your age, but her family isn’t eager to let her grow up, I hear.”

“Just those four?”

“Whoever it was, they trapped the wolves with mountain ash and the humans with some kind of barricade. Magic, probably. No one knows how Peter escaped, but he was badly burned and slow to heal. Laura had taken the children out on a walk, as I understand, though I don’t know why. It was a big pack gathering out at their manor, relatives there from miles away.” She blew across his neck, warm and humid, and he shivered. “I do believe I’m done. Take a look.”

Stiles shook off the feeling of her hands on his skin and stood to peer into her small handmirror. For once, he found himself at a loss for words. She’d cropped his hair close to his skull, just long enough to run his fingers through, and the shape of it made his face seem—longer? More angular, all sharp cheekbones and squared jaw.

“I think I love you,” he gasped.

“Save it,” she scoffed. “And get some rest.” She jerked her chin at the narrow bunk. “There are no guest rooms on a ship and I’ve got watch tonight.”

“There won’t be… talk? Among the crew?”

She merely glanced at him over her shoulder as she strode for the doorway, but that one look told him to never, ever cross Captain Martin if he didn’t fancy a thorough keelhauling. She stopped just short of the door to tell him in an unexpectedly soft voice, “Take the bindings off before you sleep, Stiles, or you’ll make yourself sick.”

#

Scott awoke and—for one sweet second—was too disoriented to realize how unpleasant everything was. “What country, friend, is this?” he murmured sleepily, content to be anywhere and really only slightly curious, voice muffled where his face lolled against the hand shaking him awake.

Awake. Oh shit. He groaned and flopped over, blinking against the sunlight. “What… oh god, what _happened?_ I’ve never been so hungover in my life.”

“Not hungover,” a voice sounded behind him, sounding utterly wretched. “Shipwrecked.”

“Whoa! I did not know you were there! You scared me right of my skin. Wait—Captain Lahey?”

“Isaac is fine now, Scotty. Can’t be a captain with no ship, now can I?”

“Did you rescue me?” Scott rolled onto his side to examine the captain. They’d been introduced, of course—any respectable captain would act as the de facto guardian of any young nobles on his ship, even one as young as Captain Lahey, and while Stiles flatly refused to leave their cabin in a dress, Scott had spoken with the man once or twice—but he’d hardly had time to get to know him before the storm had hit. His dark blond curls were tousled, his face was tanned and surprisingly beardless, his wide eyes stared unyieldingly at Scott from the tangle of his own long limbs.

“Pulled you out of the water, at least. Not much of a rescue if I can’t get you to a meal and a fire. Come on, up with you.”

“Do you know where we are? I must seek word of my br—St—Viola. And send a letter to our parents, if at all possible.”

“In a general way, but honestly? No idea what town we might be near, or even which duchy we’re in. We’re going to start walking and cross our fingers for a road, my friend.”

Scott flashed a smile before pulling himself to his feet. He still felt like death warmed over, and looked forward not at all to the hike in front of him, but he had a friend with him now, and that was a comfort.

#

It was late afternoon before they found a road, but only another half-mile or so north before they reached a well-marked crossroads. “Beacon Hills, two miles,” Scott read excitedly. “That’s great news, Isaac, we’ll be stuffing ourselves at an inn within the hour!”

The spark Scott had been so delighted to see return to Isaac’s eyes over the course of the day abruptly left as his mouth tightened at the corners. “For you, it is wonderful news. But I cannot accompany you.”

Scott’s face fell. “But—you came all this way with me. You’re not going to…”

“I am not allowed within the boundary of the Beacon Hills duchy. Had I known we were there already, we would have been walking south. If the Hales’ men catch me, I am a dead man.”

“What di—”

“I don’t wish to discuss it.” Isaac reached into one of his deep pockets and pulled out a leather purse. “Take this. You’ll need it, for food and fresh clothes and to get a letter sent.”

“I can’t do that. You’ve done so much for me already, surely you need those things at least as much as I.”

Isaac looked at him with pleading plain on his face. “Please, Scotty. It would set my heart at ease to know you are cared for. And when you find your sister—”

“Brother.”

“Beg pardon?”

“My twin. Stiles. My brother, not my sister. He’s always been labeled a girl, since we were children, but that’s because the doctors saw only his surface. He wore boys’ clothes only, before our parents became so concerned with marrying him off. And he wears men’s clothes still, when it is just the two of us. He is more—he is himself that way.”

“It doesn’t—concern you?”

“I worry for his safety, sometimes, but as he’s told me, if he hides himself to be safe from the world outside, he faces the dangers within his own head.” He shrugged. “He’s my brother. I love him, and I want him to be happy. What should I care for how he dresses?”

“You are a good man, Scott,” Isaac swore angrily under his breath. “Take the purse. Find your brother. Be well.” And with that, he turned on his heel and stalked off to the south. He looked back, briefly, from the top of the next rise, and saw only Scott’s back as the young man walked steadily north.

To Beacon Hills.

Isaac cursed again, and kept walking.

**Chapter Two**

Derek stayed away for nearly two days and returned home limping and dripping salt water all over the foyer.

“Oh, Der,” Laura crooned, picking up each of his paws in turn. “You can’t push yourself so hard.”

Derek shifted back so suddenly Laura still held one of his blistered, raw hands in both of hers. “I’ll do it,” he grunted. “I will court the Lady Braeden.” Even to himself, his voice sounded pained: hoarse and rasping from two days as the wolf and obviously begrudging saying anything at all.

Laura almost laughed. “Derek! You know as well as I do that she’s in mourning and will admit the suit of no man.”

“I will court the Lady Braeden,” Derek repeated through clenched teeth, “as she is the only sufficiently high-ranking human of marriageable age in Beacon Hills and there are no wolves at all for me to consider. But I—I am not skilled in the ways of… poetry and song and… frivolity. Might I engage the services of a, a poet of some type?”

“Oh, Der,” Laura murmured. “You really are trying, huh?”

In lieu of responding, Derek clenched his jaw, feeling the muscle in his cheek pop. Laura knew his answer full well; there was no need to embarrass himself further by verbalizing it.

“Well, of course we can retain a troubadour for you. In fact—well, while you were away, a young man came to us seeking employ. He’s still recovering—he’d been in a shipwreck, you see—but he insists he’s skilled in all manner of musical arts, and well-versed enough in courtly fashion and protocols to make a fine valet. I know you’ve eschewed such personal servants in the past, but I bade him stay at least until your return. If you’re going to court the Lady Braeden of all people, you must do so correctly. Formally. And that means you must stop dressing like a serving-boy yourself. You’re not a child anymore, Der, and I know you don’t care much for human ways and manners-”

“That’s not—”

“—but you have to bend somewhere. You must—”

“I’m not even fighting you on this, Laura! Why do you persist in convincing me of it?”

“Stiles is… rather talkative. And you do love your quiet.”

“You and Cora talk enough for a whole pack,” Derek grumbled. “No need for me to add to the cacophony.”

“Be that as it may. Go to your rooms now, and rest. You can meet Stiles on the morrow, when you’re both feeling a bit more yourselves.”

“Do you think he will talk even more when he is recovered?”

“Rest, Derek.”

#

When Cora pounded on his door the next morning, Derek pulled himself from bed against his own better judgment and dressed slowly, purposefully delaying the inevitable, but even he couldn’t put it off forever.

He walked silently down the stairs, straining his ears to get a sense of this Stiles before he met his new valet, but caught only the sounds of contended eating. He turned the corner into the dining room and there—inelegantly shoving an overloaded spoon of oatmeal into his mouth with one hand as he brought a tall water glass to his mouth with the other—was the most beautiful young man Derek had ever seen. Short dark hair, expressive eyes verging on the impish, a mouth—

“Derek,” Laura greeted from her seat at the head of the table. “So kind of you to join us.”

—a mouth he really should not be thinking of around his sisters. He felt his skin heat beneath his beard and stumbled toward his usual seat between Laura and Cora, mumbling his greetings as he went.

Unfortunately, that put him directly across from the fascinating young man, who had been sat in the chair they usually kept empty in case Peter decided to put in an appearance.

He ate without paying any mind to what he put on his plate, torn between staring unabashedly at Stiles and looking at anything else in the room in attempt to keep the smell of his arousal from reaching his sisters’ noses, all while he tried in vain to pay attention to Laura’s forced-cheerful chatter and make listening noises in the appropriate places.

He was draining the last of his tea when he heard her say, “Excellent. So, we’ll have Stiles moved into your rooms this morning, and you can spend the afternoon showing him his duties as your page.”

The tea shot right out of his nose, all over himself and his nearly empty plate. He scrambled for a napkin as both Cora and Stiles collapsed with laughter, protesting over their loud guffaws as he did so, “But—my rooms—what?”

Laura wisely ignored the spectacle unfolding in front of her and raised her eyebrows at him. “Certainly. How else shall he be able to attend to your needs, if he is not sleeping in the next chamber over?”

Unable to put his concerns into words even if he had been willing to continue discussing his needs in front of Stiles—not to mention his sisters—Derek curled into himself and agreed resignedly, “Yes, alpha.”

#

Derek spent the morning on four legs, running beyond the garden walls to burn off some of his nervous energy, bringing Cora with him in a pointless ploy to pretend he wasn’t hiding from his new valet, but when the sun reached its zenith and Cora began to whine in hunger, he sighed to himself and turned back to the manor.

He dragged his feet as he followed Cora’s leisurely lope home, shifted in the vestibule where he’d left his clothes and continued to drag his feet as he climbed the stairs to his rooms.

He opened the door and was greeted with the all-too-welcome sight of Stiles bent over and digging through an enormous trunk.

“Page,” he grunted by way of greeting.

Stiles spun around, clearly startled, as he struggled to keep both his balance and his hold on the clothing in his arms.

Instead, he ended up sitting in the trunk like a bathtub, arms protruding awkwardly and legs splayed over one side, with a pair of Derek’s old hose draped over his face. Derek’s nostrils flared unbidden to take in the smell of his and Stiles’ scents mixed together, and he immediately cursed his action. The boy was in his employ, not to be lusted over in such a manner, and—

“Uh—my lord? Your sister has provided these for me while she has a new suit made for me in the colors of your house. I was merely—”

“It is no matter. I have long since outgrown those clothes; you are welcome to them.” Derek didn’t know what Laura had been thinking to give Stiles those particular clothes, which fairly reeked of his own pubescent hormones despite how long they’d been hidden away. “Now, as to your duties: I am well used to bathing and dressing myself, though my alpha insists it is time I allow a personal servant to take over these tasks, as ‘befits my station’. Laura tells me you are familiar with the dress and manners of the nobility?”

Stiles did his best to extricate himself from the tangle of fabric as he stammered through his answer. “Yes, my lord. I was born above my fortunes—don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be here—but still, I am a gentleman. It would be my, er, I would be happy to—I can help you dress, sir.”

Derek glared, wary of even asking the next question of a page who clearly had so much trouble expressing himself, but sighed deeply before continuing, “And you will be able to assist me in… courting?” He couldn’t quite keep the disgust from his tone. “Memorizing and delivering messages, writing poems, serenading, that sort of thing?”

Finally free of Derek’s hose, Stiles looked up with a bright smile. “Oh, yes! Your sister informs me there is a whole music room I may choose my instruments from—I’m best with a lute, but if you feel a different tool would better convey the particular tenor of your passions, I’m sure I will be able to accommodate you, my lord.”

Derek elected not to respond to that, fearing to give away just how much he wanted Stiles to accommodate him, and barreled onward. “Laura has told me I’ll need to have a new portrait made to present to the Lady Braeden. I begin sitting for it in the morning. Can you—she says I need to be clean-shaven.”

“You want me to, to shave you?” Stiles squeaked.

“Is that a problem?”

“I may need you to talk me through it, my lord. I, you see…” Stiles gestured vaguely at his own smooth cheeks.

Despite himself, Derek stepped closer, allowing himself to examine the youth as closely as he wished for the first time. They made eye contact and Stiles’ eyes widened in surprise, black pupils almost swallowing up the deep amber of his irises. “You do not shave,” he murmured as he brought one large hand to cup the back of Stiles’ neck, thumb brushing along the hairless corner of his jaw. He watched Stiles’ throat bob as the boy swallowed hard, watched Stiles’ skin flutter over the rapid beat of his pulse. He took one step closer, to bury his nose in the pale curve of neck and—

And abruptly realized what he was doing. He stepped backward until his shoulders slammed against a curio cabinet. “My apologies,” he said as he stared fixedly at his own clenched knuckles. “That was—forward. I can explain it as we go.” Derek breathed heavily through his mouth to avoid inhaling any more of his page’s enticingly sweet scent.

“If it makes you uncomfortable…” Stiles began in a small voice, but did not continue.

“It’s fine,” Derek muttered, pushing off the cabinet behind him and stalking into his bedroom. He knew it would be easier to teach Stiles with a demonstration, to shave the young man himself, but he couldn’t trust himself. Head thrown back, throat elongated and inviting, eyes closed, skin flushed with the heat of the wash-water—he couldn’t do it. Moon help him, he _wanted_.

#

After Derek exited the sitting area, Stiles granted himself a few deep breaths to collect himself. Derek’s hands were big, closing almost all the way around his neck, and warmer than a human’s. Hot, even. His skin was rough, but his touch was gentle. His pale eyes were soft in his tanned face and okay, that train of thought was not helping. Stiles allowed himself one more breath before forcing himself to take the few steps to Derek’s bedroom.

Mother of god, Derek’s was huge. As was Derek’s bed.

Thankfully, the man’s voice snapped him out of his reverie. He yanked his gaze away from the bed to where Derek sprawled in an armchair by the fire, looking somehow even grumpier than he had at breakfast, or even just a moment ago in the sitting room. “First, boil the water over the fire. My beard is thick, but the heat softens it. Makes it go easier. You need it to be warm before you mix the soap, but while you wait, you can get the supplies from the cupboard behind you.”

Stiles gulped, trying not think about what he was about to do, how much touching this would involve, and scrambled to obey. He filled the heavy iron pot and swung it over the lively fire. He removed the basket of various jars and implements from their shelf, arranged and then rearranged them on the end table beside Derek’s chair. He was rearranging them for the third time when Derek interrupted him.

“Stiles.”

He jumped, almost dropping the glass vial in his hand. “Huh? I’m sorry! Um—”

“Calm down. Sit. Wait.”

Stiles immediately folded his legs beneath him, which, possibly not the best plan, as he was now kneeling at Derek’s feet. He liked it, it was just, it was a lot.

He wasn’t very good at waiting at the best of times, but especially now, so painfully aware of the heat of Derek’s legs beside him, the soft noises of both of their breaths slowly aligning in the quiet room, the heavy beat of his own pulse thrumming beneath his skin. He shifted his position, picked at his nails, shifted again.

A weight settled on the back of his head, and he froze.

“Um…”

“Just,” Derek sounded pained, “be still, Stiles. Just wait. I’ll tell you when the water’s ready.”

It was easier to relax with Derek’s thick fingers scritching gingerly against his scalp. “How will you know?”

“I can hear the bubbles.”

“Really?!” As always, Stiles got caught up in his curiosity and forgot what he was meant to be doing. He craned his neck to look up at Derek, careful not to dislodge the man’s hand, and was surprised to see a small smile flit at the corner of the wolf’s mouth. “How good is your hearing? Can you—”

“Stiles. Hush.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Stiles fell into himself, tried hard to be quiet. To be still.

It was only a few minutes before Derek said, almost in a whisper, “It will be ready in a moment. There should be a vial of oil—none of it is marked, I apologize—with a blue glass stopper. That’s the pre-shaving oil. Get that out, and take the pot off the fire. Oh, and pull a stack of hand towels from the cupboard.”

Stiles quickly located the bottle he’d been fidgeting with earlier, used the poker to swing the chimney crane until the pot of simmering water hung next to Derek’s chair.

“Good. Put two of the towels into the pot, and then scoop a little water into the lather cup. Take the—no, I’ll do it. You’ll burn yourself.”

Stiles bristled. “So will you.”

“I heal.”

“I heal!”

“As fast as a werewolf?”

Stiles bit down hard on his first response, and then his second. “What next, my lord?”

“Now that the towels are wrung out, wrap my face in them.” He kept issuing instructions through the muffle of the fabric; Stiles strained to make out the words. “Leave my nose clear!”

“Oh, um, shit, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Like this.” Derek took the towel from his hands, spread it over his own chin, and deftly flicked the ends up to cradle his entire head. “Then the other one, just on top.” Stiles repeated Derek’s motions with considerably less grace. Luckily, no one could see him. “When it stops steaming, remove the towels and apply the first lotion.”

“Okay,” he breathed, eyes fixed on Derek’s face beneath the towels. “I’m going to—” He pulled the towels off and dropped them on the tray, stared blankly as the heatflush faded quickly from Derek’s skin. Blushing himself and shutting his mouth with a snap, Stiles poured a bit of oil into his palm and began to spread it across the man’s cheek with hesitant fingertips. Those cheekbones deserved to be carved from marble and he was _touching_ them, like an unconfessed sinner taking communion.

“You can go a little harder, Stiles. Rub it in. It protects the skin and softens the hair… if my beard were any longer, you’d need to cut it down with scissors first, but we should be alright as it is.”

Stiles cursed under his breath and sent up a silent prayer of thanks that his… interest would not be visible through his breeches. A small blessing, but there were few enough advantages to his condition; he’d gladly take them where he could.

“Good. Oh, I should have had you strop the razor first. No matter. Wipe your hands clean and I’ll show you what to do, and then we’ll just do the towel again.”

“Yes, my lord. Which is the strop?”

“You’ve really never done this before? Never seen it done?” Stiles shook his head, not trusting his voice and not liking the trajectory of the questions. “The one that looks like a belt. First, the canvas side for a few strokes, see? That warms the blade. Now you try on the leather. Mind the angle. Half a dozen or so per side. Well done. Now hand me a fresh towel, thank you.” Derek dipped and wrung out the steaming cloth, winding it around his own face before Stiles could stop him.

“My lord, I’m meant to do that,” he protested.

“Next time. Just focus on not slicing me open on the next step, hm?”

Stiles _really_ hoped Derek wasn’t making his murder eyebrows under there.

“While you’re waiting, pour a bit of soap into the cup and mix it with the bristle.”

Stiles looked over the supplies and made his best guess. There was only one brush-looking thing, that was fine, but there were quite a few little jars. His selection made a good lather, though, so he supposed it would be fine. He pulled the towel from Derek’s face and dropped it on top of the other two.

“Take the brush and cover my face in lather. Don’t be stingy. Now, hold the blade like this.” Derek took Stiles’ hand in both of his own, and Stiles willed himself to focus. Derek wrapped his hand around the handle, three digits on the spine of the blade, pinky on little curved bit, the carved horn of the handle sticking up between his third and fourth fingers as his thumb pushed the narrow bar of metal against his own fingers, holding it in place. “When you shave me, you want it almost flat to the skin, but not quite.”

“Like when I was stropping?”

“Yes. Same angle. Start at the top of my cheek, just here, and shave in the same direction of the hair. Pull the skin taut. Don’t push, just let the weight of the blade do the work. Good. Wipe the blade on a towel between strokes, and if it feels like it’s getting dull, you can strop it again.”

Stiles focused carefully on his task, on Derek’s words, and tried not to think that this was Derek’s skin he was touching, that he had a man beneath his hands for the first time, a beautiful man whose head lolled back while his eyes fluttered closed as if in pleasure…

“Do my jaw next, and then the sides of my neck. Carefully.”

Stiles held his breath and moved slowly, deliberately.

“If you hold your breath so long you faint while shaving me, I will be very angry.”

“Right. Um, okay. What next?”

“Start with my mustache and move down the center of my face. Around the nose and chin is the trickiest, but the skin over my Adam’s apple is the easiest to nick.”

Stiles was painfully aware of his own body, his breathing and clumsy hands, the nervous pounding of his heart and the clammy sweat on his palms.

Finally, he was done. Derek’s face, mercifully unbloodied, was clear of soap and hair. “Thank goodness that’s over. Now what?”

Derek shot him an unimpressed look, brows lowered threateningly. “Now you do it all over again in the opposite direction. My hair is very thick. Then you wash me with cold water, then the aftershave lotion.”

Well, shit.

#

“He’s scared of me,” Derek announced flatly as he walked into Laura’s sitting room uninvited. “Or he hates me. Or both.”

“Use your big boy words, Derek. What happened?”

“I was teaching him how to shave me for that damned portrait you say I must have, and the longer he spent with me, the more anxious he smelled. It was terrible. When he thought we were done and I told him it was only half, his hands shook and he almost fell.”

“Perhaps he is just worried about performing adequately for you. He is not used to this, you know, he is working only because he lost everything—even his letters of introduction—when the ship he was on wrecked. Try to be a little patient, Der-bear.”

#

“He wants to kill me,” Stiles moaned the next morning after breakfast, stinking miserably. “The whole time I was shaving him, he stared at me with these, these murder eyebrows, and then he stormed off without a word as soon as I was done. When he finally returned, he locked himself in his room and still hasn’t come out or said a single word to me.”

“That’s just Derek’s way,” Laura said, fighting to keep the smile off her face.

“Yeah. He’s not used to friends.”

“I am—I am not—I am only his servant,” Stiles spluttered.

Cora shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Closest thing _he’s_ got.”

#

It was over a week before Stiles saw any more of Derek than the man’s back. Laura told him not to fret, that her brother was just a little shy, and Stiles wasn’t so uncouth as to contradict his new boss to her face, but still—eating in the kitchen rather than sharing meals, leaving any room the moment Stiles entered, locking the door of the parlor when his portrait was being worked on, these were not the marks of mere shyness.

The morning after his first full moon with the Hale household, the wolves came to breakfast rumpled from running and loopy from exhaustion. Stiles had never seen Derek smile before, had never seen the scarred face of Peter at all. He watched in amazement as they each put away easily three times as much as they normally ate: boiled mutton and fried bacon, candied fruit and boiled eggs, loaves and loaves of bread, both the hearty brown of the peasants and the fluffy white of the gentry. He had noticed before that the Hales did not stand on ceremony the way the nobility he’d grown up around had—they rarely prayed before a meal, never went to chapel, and had no qualms about eating the vegetables and white meats of the poor, nor the more adventurous new foods of the New World, potatoes and love apples and such—but never had it been more apparent than that morning, as all four of them stuffed their faces without shame or pause.

Though Stiles hardly had a peckish appetite, he was full at least half an hour before the pack finally slowed. After that, he just watched in disbelief. Even little Cora put away enough food for three grown men at the end of a long day’s work.

Finally sated, Derek grinned drunkenly at Stiles. Stiles swallowed down his gasp—he knew it had nothing to do with him, only the lassitude of a full moon run with the pack, the satisfaction of a good meal, but still. The man was beautiful at any time, but like this? Relaxed and happy, smiling so wide his eyes crinkled, he was breathtaking.

“Page,” Derek drawled. “I am—I will nap. And upon my waking, you will meet me in my sitting room, and we will discuss my courtship of the lady Braeden.”

“It is well past time.” Stuffed to bursting, Laura sounded even more smug than she usually did.

Derek’s answering grumble held none of his usual bite. “You’re the one who insisted the painting be completed first.”

“Your… courtship,” Peter began, and then stopped, looking uncertain. Stiles had been warned of the man, if he was to encounter him on the grounds or in a lonely corner of the manor, but he looked harmless enough, slow with food in both mind and body, despite the disquieting stare that bored right through a body.

“Derek and Braeden, sitting in a tree—”

“Cora!” Even Laura’s reprimand was lazy. “Yes, Uncle. Derek has finally decided to go courting.”

Derek scoffed under his breath, but Stiles did not think anyone else caught the low, “Decided,” muttered as if it was a joke, and wondered at what it meant.

“She is… human?”

“She is eligible,” Laura corrected. “And harmless.”

“Quite.” Derek grinned again at Stiles, disarming in his unfocused intensity. “As I said, Sti—page. In my rooms. After my nap.” He rose heavily and lumbered off towards the stairs.

“I’m just going to, uh—” Stiles excused himself clumsily and ran to tune his instruments.

#

Derek stepped out of his bedroom in just his thin nightshirt, yawning hugely and scrubbing his hands through his hair, and nearly walked right into Stiles.

“Derek! Er, my lord. Are you—would you—”

Derek looked down at himself. He was streaked with dirt and blood; there were certainly leaves and twigs in his hair. “I need a bath. Fill the tub. I’m—” He interrupted himself with a jaw-cracking yawn. “—still so tired. You will bathe me.”

Stiles blanched but replied, “Yes, my lord,” politely enough, so Derek followed the human back to his bedroom without comment and sat heavily on his bed while he watched Stiles work. It took a long time to heat enough water to fill his frankly ludicrous tub, and he enjoyed the opportunity to watch the boy’s muscles bunch and flex without his sisters there to scrutinize his actions or smell his responses. He must set all that aside to be married, he knew that, but he would have this one last—and besides, there was little harm in looking. So long as he did not say anything, did not do anything, Stiles did not even have to know of his, his proclivities.

He drifted off, half dozing and and half daydreaming, and startled back to attention when Stiles said, “Your bath is ready, sir. Shall I, um, privacy, you know…”

“Don’t be silly,” Derek murmured, stripping off his shift and walking over to the tub. “There is little point to you leaving now only to come back to bathe me. Here, start with my hair. It is the worst, usually.”

Stiles muttered something Derek didn’t bother to catch and then set to work, clever long fingers combing through Derek’s tangled hair, scooping water over his head and rubbing soap into his scalp. Stiles rinsed his hair and nudged Derek to lean forward, scrubbing his back with a soft cloth.

“So, my lord. What is it that sends you courting?”

“Huh?” Derek pulled himself from his pleasant daze, confused as to why Stiles was asking him such a thing.

“What is it about the lady Braeden that has incited your passions and set your heart aflame? I can write a poem or a song to any woman, of course, but it will be much more personal, much more effective, if I can write it truly from your perspective.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. I, uh—” Derek racked his brain for something to say. Truly, he’d seen the woman only a few times, from across a room mostly, and not in quite a long time. “Her bearing. Is most majestic. And, well…” Against his will, Derek began to think of all the things he admired about Stiles. “Hi—her smile is bright, full of mischief. Her eyes sparkle such that I’m sure, if only we had the opportunity to speak freely, I would be made to laugh as I seldom have before.” Derek smiled to himself, a small, private thing, ducking his face to hide it. “H—she smells fresh. Like a summer’s day, only more lovely, and far less temperate.” He inhaled through his nose, deep and long, hoping to get a whiff of Stiles, hay-making season and warm fruit and musky earth, but the air was too full of the smell of the bath, woodsmoke and lemon soap and the steam from the bathwater. Just as well, perhaps for even without Stiles’ inebriating scent he was stirring, already, beneath the water. He leaned a bit further forward and continued on, “It is—for a wolf, more important than beauty. Though she has that too. So much. Hi—er limbs, so long. And her hands…” Derek sounded a bit mournful, even to his own ears, and hoped Stiles would not notice. “And all that skin.”

“Right,” Stiles said dryly. “Arms, legs, skin. Got it, sir.”

“That’s not all I said,” Derek protested, looking up at last. The boy’s skin was flushed red and shining with sweat, like he—no. “Are you overwarm? You could, ah, remove your doublet.” He cursed to himself. Trading a red-faced Stiles for an underdressed one would be no help at all.

“No! Um. No, thank you, my lord. Perhaps I could—a window?”

“That would be fine.” Derek leaned back in the bath, hugging his knees, and let the cool breeze play on his face and douse his passions.

**Chapter Three**

Erica grinned at Boyd over the rim of her ale mug. It was probably improper, the thoughts she had about her employer’s uncle, but she didn’t much care. Boyd had never stood on ceremony like some of the nobility she’d worked for over the years, had never put on airs or pretended like he was any better than even the lowliest servant, and she liked that.

She didn’t care much about the late hour or the volume of singing coming from Boyd and the household fool, either. (A love song, at Boyd’s insistence, though the way Feste sang, every song became a song of good life.) Her lady’s rooms were in the opposite wing of the house from kitchens for a good reason; the only person their revelry might bother would be the butler and, frankly, the more they bothered him the happier she was.

As if the very thought could summon him—Erica shuddered in revulsion at the thought—Malvolio appeared in the doorway, a dour expression creasing his face. For one beautiful moment, his mouth thinned to a grotesquely comedic grimace and Erica had to hide her giggles behind her hand.

That moment was soon ruptured, though, when the odious man opened his mouth to yell, “Have you no wit, manners, no honesty? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you? Making an alehouse of my lady’s house. Hmph!”

“We respect place plenty,” Boyd drawled, drunk enough to be lazy in his speech, but not drunk enough to be inclined to be friendly to the butler. “Here we are in the kitchen, where our revelry will not disturb my niece, are we not?”

“I expected this sort of low-life behavior from a drunkard like Boyd, and no one expects anything from an idiot like _that_ ,” Malvolio jerked his chin towards Feste, “but you, Erica, if you valued my lady’s favor at anything above contempt, you’d not give license for such uncivil rule; Braeden will know of both your misdeeds and disrespect of my position, I swear it.”

With that melodramatic little speech, he turned on his heel and swept out of the kitchen, no doubt thinking the partiers well-chastised indeed. Erica waited until the door slammed shut behind him to shout, “Go shake your ears!” loud enough to be sure he heard.

#

Peter crept closer to the edge of the roof. He’d been away from the pack, wandering the countryside, for several days and still hadn’t made up his mind about speaking to anyone.

A tangle of voices floated over the heat baking off the dark tiles and Peter dug his claws in to crouch at the roof-edge overhanging Derek’s balcony.

“…left last week, she did grant my return—bregrudgingly, but still—so I penned a new sonnet. Would you like me to perform it, my lord? To see if it properly conveys the nature of your, er, ardor, sir?”

There was nothing blocking Derek or Stiles’ line of sight to Peter, but it was unlikely either would look away from the other and the rising heat would carry his scent away from them.

Peter settled in to watch his nephew and the human page.

“That would be fine, Stiles,” Derek rumbled, brows drawn together.

Stiles paced the few steps it took to cross the balcony, rubbing one hand roughly through his hair. He stopped, took one huge breath in and spun to face Derek. He clasped his hands behind his back and began to speak in his thin young voice, wavering at first but growing steadier:

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain,

Have put on black and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

Peter’s nostrils flared. The boy smelled scared, his pulse fluttering fast like something cornered, something that knew how close it was to being dinner—his knees trembled but still, his gaze never shook away from Derek’s own eyes.

And truly not the morning sun of heaven

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even

Doth half that glory to the sober west,

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

Derek’s jaw dropped to let him pant heavily through his mouth. He wouldn’t allow himself to scent Stiles, Peter saw, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from tracking across the boy’s fraught face or following the movements of the long-fingered hands that had broken free to arc through the air.

O, let it then as well beseem thy heart

To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace,

And suit thy pity like in every part.

One of Stiles’ hands came up to cup his red cheek and ran down his neck. Derek hissed in a breath and snapped his mouth closed. Stiles took a step forward, a step toward Derek, and his voice rang out louder and steadier than before:

Then will I swear beauty herself is black

And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

“I’m going to—go,” Derek said. He turned to walk inside, turned back. “That was…” Derek’s voice suddenly sounded as it hadn’t since before the fire, open and—open. “Stiles, that was very good. That was it exactly. Thank you.”

Peter heard the noise of Derek going inside, stripping his clothes and shifting to his wolf, but Stiles stayed put for a long time, staring vacantly over the grounds. Peter stayed where he was as well, taking long sniffs of Stiles’ changing scent, his earlier anxiety overlaying his delicate human scent and turning it sour. The boy sank to the ground, shoulders curling in on themselves.

Finally, Peter forced himself to back away from them, though he didn’t break his eyes away from the human until he’d climbed to the peak of the roof and had to go over.

#

Derek woke early and stumbled out to his sitting room, intending on waiting for Stiles to wake to head down to the kitchens—perhaps hoping to catch Stiles in just his shift, half-asleep still—and sat heavily on the couch. His fingers slipped behind the cushion and brushed something… paper? He tugged it out and smoothed the crumpled parchment.

It was a poem[http://lumpy-pudding.tumblr.com/post/24331150380/allen-ginsberg-love-poem-on-theme-by-whitman] in Stiles’ careful script, but not a sonnet like the others he’d heard, not metered at all.

Phrases, lines jumped out at him, lodging like ice in his gut, his dry throat:

“ _I’ll go into the bedroom silently and lie down between the bridegroom and the bride…”_

Could Stiles be writing about his own upcoming wedding?

“… _crook’d to receive, cock in the darkness driven tormented and attacking roused up from hole to itching head,/bodies locked shuddering naked…”_

Well, that left little to the imagination. Not nothing, mind; Derek could still imagine plenty.

“… _the mind wakes, behind shades and closed doors in a darkened house/where the inhabitants roam unsatisfied…”_

“Derek? Sir? You’re awake early.”

Derek shoved the scrap of paper into his sleeve without thinking and spun to face the boy who unfortunately—fortunately—that _poem_ , Derek could not, could not—the boy who extremely fortunately was fully dressed.

As well as tousled and adorable, a sleepy smile on his face as he asked if Derek would require assistance dressing.

It was going to be a very long day.

#

Stiles slipped out of the kitchen door and fairly ran to the welcoming shade of the orchard. Derek had been glaring at him all morning for some transgression Stiles couldn’t for the life of him remember committing, and good god above, he knew there was something wrong with him for it, but that intimidating stare turned him squirmy and liquid between his legs.

Forgoing the Hales’ richer luncheon for a hunk of bread and a cool moment to himself was an easy trade, he thought as he settled back against the gnarled trunk of an older tree, rubbing a muscle in his shoulder out against one of the burls. He’d never be able to pay Lydia back for her help with the bindings, but staying flat all the time did make for some impressive knots in his back.

He settled in and ate his bread quickly, washing it down with some early apricots which had fallen to the ground beside him. He was more relaxed now, out from under Derek’s heavy gaze, but still worked up from his long morning. The Hales would be at lunch for some time yet, and Peter hadn’t been seen in days…

Stiles looked around. He was deep in the orchard, and saw no one. He flopped gracelessly onto his stomach, pulling up his shift and pushing down his hose as he did, mindful not to make a soppy mess of his clothes, before impatiently shoving a hand between his legs where he was already drooling-wet. He traced two fingertips around the edge of where he was so hungry, getting them slick, before he gave in and humped his hand relentlessly, fucking down into it as hard as he could, spreading his legs as wide as his twisted clothing would allow so he’d spill onto the ground.

It wasn’t long at all before he came, biting down on his other fist and whimpering, “Please, please, sir.”

Stiles got himself off twice more before gingerly standing on his shaking legs and looked from his wrinkled fingers to the small puddle he’d left glinting in the grass. “Fuck it,” he muttered, sticking his hand in his mouth to suck them clean.

#

Cora half-shifted and jumped off the balcony of her rooms, gleeful at the effectiveness of her plan to avoid another long afternoon of human etiquette lessons. It may have lacked in subtlety, but you couldn’t argue with the results She switched to four legs as she landed, heedless of her shredded clothing, and ran two long laps of the orchard at top speed before slowing to an aimless trot and wandering through the wide, grassy avenues between the trees.

She heard the crunch of human footsteps and whirled—only Stiles, but still. She shifted to back to hands and scrambled up the nearest tree. She climbed almost to the top, up where the branches thinned and bent under her weight, enjoying the warm sunlight and soft breeze, the sticky smell of ripening fruit. She forgot all about hiding from Stiles and her skipped lessons.

By the time she climbed down from the treetop, it was nearing late afternoon and Stiles was long gone.

Derek was there, though.

He didn’t seem to be looking for her. Three rows over and two down, he had his face shoved into the earth beneath their largest apricot tree, groaning with what sounded very much like pain, or even anger.

Cora climbed back up the tree, as silently as she could.

#

Two days after the following full moon, Laura pulled on her dressing gown and walked down to the kitchen. It was still a few minutes to sunrise, not a baking day, but she liked her quiet moments in the empty kitchen from time to time, her and her steeping teapot and the rising sun.

So she startled when she pulled the thick door wide and Derek was there, piling a tray with bread and fruit, honey and cheese, a rapid series of fierce words with no breath behind them running across his lips.

“Derek? Are you alright? Is Stiles ill?”

His head snapped up. Perhaps he’d been too engrossed in his task to hear her approach. “No, he’s… Stiles is… he’s fine. Why?”

“You looked angry, almost. Are you sure things are well?”

Derek flushed, sudden and dark, and shouldered past her with his tray clenched tight in his hands. “Leave it alone, Laura.”

Laura was still laughing when the first maid arrived to unbank the fires.

#

#

“He’s tattled on us one too many times, that prick,” Erica proclaimed as she thumped down on the kitchen bench.

“Huh?” It was early, still, and there was a good chance Boyd’s adventures with Feste the night before lingered on in his bleary eyes.

“Malvolio.” Boyd perked up instantly, clearly interested in whatever plan she might be hatching. “He’s forever poking his nose in where he doesn’t belong, and I’ve had quite enough from him. It’s time to teach him a lesson.”

“You are a delightful woman, Erica, I’ve always said. What did you have in mind?”

**Chapter Four**

The next time Stiles made a call on the lady Braeden, she was waiting for him in the garden already, speaking quietly with her Uncle Boyd and maid, Erica. Her eyes lit when she looked up at him, and she quickly shooed the two of them away with her butler. Stiles approached just in time to catch the end of their conversation. “…not the end of this, my lady.”

“Go, Malvolio. Do not make me ask again.” She sat on a delicately carved wooden bench, patting the spot beside her. “Stiles. How kind of you to visit me again.”

He remained standing. “You know I am here on behalf of my lord Derek, lady. His love will not be ignored. He is desperate for you to hear his suit.”

“I believe I have heard it in full already, have I not? The first day you came, you spoke most eloquently, and then you returned with the sonnet you’d written to my eyes—”

“Written from the perspective of my lord, I assure you—”

“—so I think I’ve heard enough of his suit. Tell me of you, now.”

“My lady, if he knew how he pined for you, you would not cast this aside so easily. If I loved another as he loved you—”

“Yes, that. Tell me, Stiles, if you loved someone as you insist your lord loves me—what then would you do?”

“Oh, I’d…” Stiles trailed off, remembering a poem he’d begun and pushed aside the previous afternoon. Sticking to the second person was safer, he’d found, and this one should suffice. “My lady, if I burned with love as does my lord Derek you must know that I would

Make me a willow cabin at your gate

And call upon my soul within the house.

Write loyal cantons of contemned love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night.

Halloo your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out “D-Braeden!” Oh, you should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth,

But you should pity me.”

Stiles stopped talking, but his voice rang back him from the stone walls of the garden, high and mocking. He felt his face flush pink, and took a step back, feeling foolish.

Braeden stood and followed him. “Stiles, that was… truly moving. I find myself filled with compassion for your unreturned affections.”

“Lord Derek’s affections, my lady. Not mine! I am merely his vessel.”

She clutched his arm. “Are you sure, Stiles? The depth of that longing sounded most genuine.”

He tugged his arm back. “I am quite sure, my lady. My lord Derek seeks your hand in marriage and will not drop his suit until he gets it. No other could fill the place in his heart he’s made for you.” His voice had the flat weight of truth. “Now if you will excuse me, my lady.”

Stiles turned and walk away before he could admit any more of his least welcome feelings to a stranger, but he wasn’t more than a block away when Malvolio trotted up to him, red-faced and fuming, and thrust a ring towards him. “I’ll thank you to not leave any of your unwanted tokens behind next time and save me the work of chasing you down to return them!”

The man disappeared in the bustling crowd before Stiles could make any response, leaving him to gape down at the fine gold ring in his palm, ringed all the way round in tiny sparkling emeralds.

#

Peter ran along the rooftops, following Stiles as he made his way through the narrow roads of the town. It was only late morning, but he wasn’t worried—the overhangs hid him to such an extent he followed Stiles’ heartbeat for most of the journey, and humans never looked up anyway. Never assessed their surroundings.

It was easy enough to conceal himself along the wall surrounding the human’s house, half-hidden behind a flowing tree and in full hearing of anything said in the gardens.

The boy delivered his speech with an urgency that couldn’t have been faked, but the scent-trail he left behind when he sped off made the hair on the back of Peter’s neck bristle in a way he couldn’t shake and didn’t like.

He’d just moved to follow the boy back when he heard the woman speak again. “Malvolio, can you believe the page’s impudence? He insisted on leaving his lord’s ring behind, whether or not I granted permission.” Her voice was demure, edging on offended, and high like a child’s, nothing like the near whisper she’d used for Stiles.

The man snorted angrily but agreed, “If I must, my lady,” and Peter shrank into a bush as the human stalked past him, hissing angrily under his breath.

He stayed put as the first the butler, then the page returned to Braeden’s house and listened with growing anger to Stiles’ protests of innocence. Regardless of blame in the matter of the ring, it was clear from the woman’s behavior earlier and her words now that, rather than courting this woman in Derek’s name, as he’d been charged, Stiles had connived to steal her affections away himself.

“Please, take your ring back, good lady, and do not persist in this story.”

“Stiles, please.” Her voice had fallen again, lower and rougher than the doll voice she’d used to order her servant around earlier. “I understand you are embarrassed at being caught out, but I cannot allow you to leave such a token with me. Your master must know I can accept no suit now.”

“My lord Derek knows this. I have told you before he is willing to wait to formalize these arrangements until your period of mourning ends. He has only instructed me woo you with song and verse so that you may know the nature of his affections; I have never seen such a ring before in my life!”

Peter smelled Stiles’ fear from over the wall, and shifted in his hiding place, weight settling into the balls of his feet. He should be scared, turning his back on Derek, his nephew, on _pack_.

“Stiles.” Her voice was even softer, almost too faint to be heard. “Just take it. We needn’t speak of—”

Peter launched himself over the wall without thinking, landing with a snarl and spinning until he faced Stiles.

Between him and the boy, though, were three humans: Braeden, looking wild with anger; the self-important butler from earlier, already blustering toward him; Braeden’s uncle Boyd, a man Peter remembered from his more social days, his usually congenial face folded in concern.

Peter inhaled and stood, exhaled, inhaled again, exhaled and shifted until he appeared fully human. He was not running the Hale lands; he would not bring this trouble back to his pack.

He held up one hand to Boyd, one hand to Malvolio, but stared only at Stiles. “You—human—page. You have twisted my nephew’s mission to your own ends and besmirched my pack’s name. I challenge you to a human’s duel of honor. Meet me at the west border of town at sunset or be banished from Beacon Hills!” He lowered his arms and turned to Braeden, bowing stiffly with his half-remembered human etiquette. “My lady. I apologize for bringing this… messiness to your door.”

Peter coiled into a crouch and sprang to the top of the garden wall. He stood for a long moment on the peak of it, allowing his human clothing to flap dramatically in the breeze as he slid back to his fangs and claws. He landed lightly on his feet on the other side, pausing to remark to himself, “That went well, I think,” before he fell forward onto four legs and loped off.

**Chapter Five**

Erica and Feste crouched behind a long hedge in Braeden’s garden as Boyd did a perfect imitation of a fine gentleman going for a sedate afternoon stroll. At the appointed place—a bench Malvolio had taken to sitting and reading on of an afternoon—he dropped the letter he’d hidden in his sleeve and continued on without ever breaking his stride.

Boyd had just disappeared through the courtyard doorway when Malvolio appeared, a thick book clasped in his hands. Erica and Feste elbowed each other, barely keeping their giggles in check as Malvolio caught sight of the letter. “What is this letter? It is addressed, but only ‘To the unknown beloved, this—and my good wishes!’ It has been left here, in secret, on my bench; it must be intended for me.”

“Megalomaniac,” Erica hissed.

“Old coot,” Feste agreed.

Malvolio broke the wax on the parchment without ceremony and began to read in his nasal, carrying voice: “‘Jove knows I love. But who? Lips, do not move; no man must know.’”

“He declaims as if he recites an epic poem,” the fool snorted.

“‘If this fall into your hand, reflect upon it. In my stars I am above you; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some, my love, have greatness thrust upon them.’”

The butler read on, voice rising in pitch and volume as he did, hands flying wildly as he strode passionately back and forth across the small arbor. “‘The fates open their hands; let blood and spirit embrace them; and to inure yourself to what you are like to be, cast off your humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants…’ I would be only too happy, my lady, only too happy… ‘Remember she who commended your yellow stockings and wished to see you ever cross-gartered. If my affections go unreturned—’ Never, darling Braeden, never. ‘—let me see you a steward still, the fellow of servants, unworthy to touch Fortune’s fingers, but if you desire it so, remember what this letter; you are made. Farewell.

“‘She that would alter services with you, The Fortunate Unhappy.’”

Malvolio collapsed all at once, as if the weight of his own good fortune was suddenly too much for him. Erica chuckled to see his chicken legs sticking out awkwardly—his normally flawless posturing had been ruffled and then some by the letter.

“It is unexpected, I must say, that she would reach out in this way, though not quite a surprise she holds these affections. It must have been the clumsy courtship of that young man that woke her to the necessity of expressing her true self. Yes, yes, I must retire to my chambers forthwith and change these stockings.”

#

Scott put his back to the sinking sun and began walking; he’d taken the day to wander the forested hills closing Beacon Hills in on its inland side and consider his options. He’d been searching for his brother for weeks with no leads—and there were no close by towns Stiles might have sought shelter in instead. As little as he wanted to face the possibility, it was time for him to begin searching the coast for signs of Stiles’ body.

He’d spend one more night at the boarding-house he’d found his first day in town and then turn south. Perhaps he could find Isaac too, while he looked for Stiles. Perhaps they could search together…

He clambered over the wall separating the town itself from the grazing commons around it, turning north towards supper and a relatively clean bed. Despite his hunger, he walked slowly, as if his pace would delay the awful truth of his decision to leave Beacon Hills.

He’d just turned onto widest road crossing the village when a man with a pinched, contemptuous demeanor and heinous mustard-yellow stockings stopped him to say, “Please, sir, my mistress would speak with you.”

The nicest thing Scott could say about the man’s voice was that it matched his face well, but the woman the man indicated smiled enticingly in his direction, and Scott found himself crossing the street to greet her before he’d thought it through.

“Good day, ma’am.”

“Please.” The woman leaned forward to hold one of Scott’s hands in both of hers. “While you’ve a moment away from your employers, come with me. I so happen to have a priest waiting at my home, we could be married before your master has time to object—”

Scott took one very careful step backwards. “No offense, lady, but are you actually insane? I’ve never seen you before in my life and you want me to marry you? Now? Like, you have a priest lined up. That doesn’t seem a little… extreme for a first meeting?”

The woman’s soft, wide eyes narrowed and sparked. “First meeting? If you wish to turn me down—”

“Don’t get me wrong, ma’am, you’re beautiful and clearly not a shrinking violent or impossible to talk to, but we could start with—a stroll, or, or—anything but a wedding, really. And just now, I’m a little—well, my br—my sister, I have to find her.”

Something slammed closed in the woman’s face and she she dropped Scott’s hand, spitting over her shoulder as she strode away, “I will be taking your ill manners up with your employer, page.” The man who’d first gotten Scott’s attention jogged to keep up with her furious pace, but not before he took a long moment to turn and glare at Scott as if he’d like nothing more than to murder him on the spot.

Scott shrugged to himself and kept walking. He hoped he didn’t get anyone in too much trouble, though he supposed he would be leaving before whatever situation he’d stepped into got resolved. He kept walking, more intent than ever on the meal and the rest awaiting him, only a few blocks away now.

He was in sight of his boarding house when he heard a rough screech shrieking out first, his brother’s name and next, something about a duel he couldn’t quite make sense of. He tried to spin, to see who or what it was, but before he made it more than a quarter turn around, a heavy weight landed on his shoulders, knocking him flat on his face and ripping into the muscle of his back. Over the noise of his own screams, he heard commotion erupting around him and struggled to turn over, to face his assailant and fight, but he passed out before he could shake the creature from his back.

#

Scott woke and wished he hadn’t for the second time in as many months. At least this time, he reasoned, he hadn’t just lost his brother as well.

He blinked and made out the concerned face of a dark haired woman, speaking to him from a great, wobbling distance. “…understand what that means? Do you to want to try, to live?”

“Wanna live,” Scott mumbled, and then the woman’s face was gone and the pain, the pain was greater than ever, fire closing on his shoulder, licking down his ribs, and he sank gratefully back into the blessed blackness.

#

Braeden reached her home in quite a huff, Malvolio trailing only a half-step behind her. Too close at any time, but far too close for her temper after such a public disgrace.

“What has been with you, these last few days? You leer at me and insult my uncle; you’re rude to my most trusted woman and persist in wearing those god-awful stockings! Whatever has gotten into your head, get it out!”

“I do only as my lady commands me,” Malvolio replied, a lecherous grin crawling unpleasantly across his face as he stepped even closer. “For I would be one that has greatness thrust upon him—”

“Erica! Boyd! Anyone, please, get this madman away from me.”

Boyd appeared in moments—long, uncomfortable moments in which Malvolio grinned and dropped unpleasant euphemisms and caressed his own legs in a most off-putting way—and took one look at his niece edging slowly away from the butler following and bellowed, “What, steward, do you think you’re doing? Such behavior would be inappropriate towards a barmaid, but to your own mistress! Don’t worry, Braeden, I’ll take care of this knave.” A split second later, Boyd had hustled the butler out of the foyer and Braeden sagged against the wall without composure, confused and discomfited by whatever it was that had just happened.

She’d barely had time to catch her breath before Boyd was back, shaking his head sadly. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but you should be safe now. I’ve locked him up in the basement until we can have someone in to deal with him, but the whole time he insisted you’d written him a love letter, that he was acting only under your instruction—the poor man’s mind has finally cracked, I fear.”

“How curious.”

#

Stiles put an extra spring in his step. He hadn’t wanted to tell Derek about the duel and it’d taken him longer than he’d planned to make his excuses and sneak out, and now he was late.

He turned a corner to see two town guards roughly taking custody of a worn, curly-haired man and hastened to cross the street. He had no time to get involved, no time to—

“Help me, please, my friend!”

Stiles turned towards the commotion with an uncomfortable grimace. Yup. The man was looking right at him. Perfection. “Sorry for your troubles, but I can’t help you.”

“You’d abandon me now?” the man wailed, reaching out across the muddy lane with his one free arm.

“I have never seen you before in my life. And I’m running late to this, um, duel and that seems important, so…” Stiles turned and trotted off, hoping to make up for the lost time, and was nearly around the corner before he heard the man’s voice cry out, “Scott! Please, come back!”

The sound of his brother’s name in that stranger’s heartwrenching voice was nearly enough to get him to turn back.

Very, very nearly.

Stiles arrived sweaty and panting but on time, just barely before the ruddy sun brushed the rim of the horizon. He hopped the low wall marking the town’s outer edge as he called out, “Hello, sorry I’m la—seriously? Are you hiding somewhere, Peter? Please do not be spooky about this.” Stiles walked the length of the field slowly, fists half-curled, glancing around restlessly. “I do not want to be here you know.” Stiles reached the end of the grass and turned to complete his circuit. “I do not really want to fight you whereas I really do want to go find that guy who maybe knew Scott… but I’m not gonna back out on you, either, so don’t think you can wait me out and get me to forfeit, okay?”

Stiles slowly lowered himself to the ground, back against the wall, and watched for Peter, trying and failing to stay quiet. He waited as the sun finished setting, painting the trees ringing the town in bloody clouds, until the sky darkened and the waning moon rose, still nearly full and plenty of light to see him home.

#

Stiles returned to find the household in an uproar. Laura broke away from the pair of city councilpeople she’d been talking to and hurried over to fold Stiles into a tighter hug than his human bones really wanted to be subjected to. “It’s so good to see you safe, Stiles.”

“Laura,” he coughed in greeting, “hey, hey. Ease off a bit. That’s great. What’s going on?”

“A human in town was mauled by another werewolf, so badly I had to give him the bite; now we’re waiting to see if it will take. He may have been too close to death already.” Laura’s words were clipped, spilling over each other.

“Who was it?”

“We don’t know. He’s well enough dressed to be known, but no one has said they recognize him.” The alpha was visibly anxious, more discomfited than Stiles had ever seen her.

“Let me see him.” Stiles tugged free of her hug and rolled his neck to un-crunch his spine. “I heard news of my brother today. Perhaps this stranger knows something. Please.”

“I know how much your brother means to you. I don’t think he’ll have the answers you’re looking for, but you’re welcome to ask”

“Where is he?”

“He’s staying in my rooms. If it works, he’ll need to be close to his alpha.”

Stiles bounced on his heels and started down the hall, calling over his shoulder as he did, “Another ‘wolf? Not Peter?

“Pardon?”

“You said it was another ‘wolf who got this man. Do you know it wasn’t him?”

“All we know is that it was a beta, or more likely a rogue omega—but no one has seen Peter in two weeks. He’s most likely far from here.”

“I saw him earlier today.”

Laura’s voice dropped flatly into suspicion as she stopped short in the middle of the hall. “Stiles. What happened?”

Stiles walked the last feet to the door in silence. “After. I promise.” He turned the handle and entered Laura’s sitting room, all her furniture pushed to the side to make room for a broad sickbed, starched white sheets rumpled and blood-stained under the bandaged, sleeping body of his brother.

“Scott! Scotty!” Stiles dashed to the bed and collapsed next to Scott, grabbing his brother’s uninjured hand in both of his. “Wake up, buddy.” He turned around to glare at Laura, still leaning in the doorway. “Is it working? What’s going to happen to him?”

“If he hasn’t died yet, he’s likely to live. As a werewolf.”

Stiles hummed thoughtfully. He might have worried, before, but the Hales had been nothing but kind to him—Peter obviously excepted—and there were certainly worse fates his brother could meet than to join them. “Do werewolves get asthma?”

Laura shook her head slowly, bemused. “Never heard of it happening, no.”

“That’s great then.” He turned back to his sleeping brother. “Hey, hey, c’mon,” he crooned.

Scott turned his head toward the sound of Stiles’ voice, blinked up blearily at his brother. “…Stiles?”

Stiles almost sobbed. “Scott! Oh god. I’m here, I’m here.”

“Knew you weren’t dead.” Scott’s voice was a little hoarse, maybe, but nothing as bad as Stiles had feared when he first saw the bleeding, unconscious body on the bed.

“And now you’re not dead either, thanks to Laura.”

Laura came to sit on Scott’s other side, systematically unwrapping and inspecting Scott’s many injuries. “You’re healing quickly now. You’re going to be fine, Scott.”

“Hairy though,” Stiles crowed.

“What?” Scott’s brow furrowed and he tried—briefly—to raise himself onto his elbows, glancing from Stiles to Laura and back again.

“Stiles, hush. Scott, you’d passed out from blood loss. You were very close to death, you probably… I hope you don’t remember. But I explained your options as best I could under the circumstances and when you said you wanted to live, I bit you. You’re a werewolf now, Scott, one of the Hales.”

“Plus, no asthma!”

Scott brightened considerably. “Oh, fantas—wait, a Hale? You’re the Hale alpha?”

“I am, are you familiar with our pack?”

“No, we’re not—that’s not important, you have to unbanish my friend Isaac so I can go after him.”

“Isaac? The captain?” Stiles made no attempt to hide his surprise, not that it would have made a difference; Scott knew what he was thinking sometimes before he did.

“He saved me,” Scott shrugged. “Now we’re friends.”

“Only you could make friends in a shipwreck, Scotty.”

“Be that as it may,” Laura cut in smoothly, “this man, Isaac, do you know why he was banished?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“His last name?”

“Lahey. He was the captain of the ship we were on, sailed out of Illyria.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar. Whatever it was, it can’t have been too bad, or I would have heard,” she mused. “And if, as you say, he saved your life, and you are Stiles’ brother, and he is needed for my own brother’s happiness—”

“Excuse me, I’m what now?”

“—yes, I will welcome him back. But you can’t go after him until you’ve mastered the shift, do you understand? I’ll send someone to look for him. What direction did you come from?”

“South.”

“Fine. I’ll return soon with the rest of the pack.”

Scott struggled to a sit as soon as Laura was out of the room and pulled Stiled into a hug. “I can’t believe it!”

“I know, you’re all supernatural now! Gonna hunt the moon and everything!”

“No, no, I mean… everyone calls you the right thing here, don’t they? That’s so great!”

“Oh, that, yeah. Yeah, that’s—I met this awesome pirate, Captain Martin, and she helped me out a lot, told me about the Hales, and now I work here, you know, as a valet mostly and then a little barding on the side?”

“I’m so—” Scott pulled Stiles into another hug, muffling his words in Stiles’ shoulder.

“Scott? Stiles?” Laura called through the door. “I’m bringing Derek and Cora in now.”

“Yeah, okay.” The brothers pulled apart to greet the newcomers, but Stiles had scarcely sat on the bed and opened his mouth to speak before a maid hurried in a scant half-step ahead of the lady Braeden, who shouldered between the two Hale betas only to stop short in the entrance of the room and looked back and forth between Scott and Stiles, dumbfounded.

“There are two of you?”

“My twin brother Scott, my lady.”

“You said you were looking for your sister!”

“I did, yes, but about that—”

“Funny story,” Stiles broke in. “When we were born, everyone thought Scott was a boy and I was a girl even though as it turns out, we’re both boys. Haha! Doctors, am I right? No need to dwell on that, though, no need at all. It’s a boring story. A very boring story. The most boring! Scott, however did you escape the horrible wreck of our ship?”

“I already told… um, yeah, I’m not really sure. I just woke up on the beach, you know—”

“Alpha Hale, fascinating though this is, I really came to complain of your page’s behavior—”

The boys practically elbowed each other out the way in their rush to defend themselves: “It was Scotty!” was rendered incoherent when it overlapped with, “I’d never seen you before and you proposed to me!”

Laura couldn’t keep the laughter from her voice when she spoke. “Is this true, Lady Braeden? You tried to wed Scott, believing he was Derek’s page Stiles?”

“I—yes, that is true. Still, he was rude to me.”

“Well, he is not my responsibility. Or rather, he wasn’t at the time. But even so. Scott? Would you not mind…?”

He blushed and turned his attention to the figure still frozen just inside the doorway. “Of course, yeah. I’m sorry, ma’am, uh, Lady Braeden. I could have turned you down more gently; I was unthinking and unkind.”

“Thank you,” the lady in question replied stiffly.

“Does that mean I’m off the hook?” Derek’s gruff voice spoke up from the back of the small crowd. “If you’ve fallen in love with my valet, I can drop my suit?”

Stiles turned to stare at his boss, jaw wide. “Derek? Sir? All those things you told me—if you feel that way, don’t let— _I_ don’t love _her_ —you should—”

Derek stepped past his sisters and Braeden to stand before Scott’s sickbed, pulling the young man up to face him. “I don’t love her, either,” he whispered fiercely. “I don’t—I’m not attracted to women.”

“ _Really_ not my best day,” Braeden remarked dryly.

Stiles looked apologetically over Derek’s shoulder at the thrice-spurned lady, but she seemed resigned. Amused, even.

Derek cradled Stiles’ hands in his and spoke again, still in that low, determined voice. Not pitching it for anyone else to hear, but not hiding it, either. “Those things I said, they were all—I love you, Stiles, I only started courting because Laura insisted, she wanted to grow the…” He grew hesitant for the first time and looked over his shoulder at his alpha, worry suddenly plain on his face. “Laura? It’s not—he’s a boy—but the—do you?”

“I’m not concerned, Der. If you have children or not, that’s up to you. I wanted you to have companionship, first. And we have Scott now, of course, filling out the pack, .”

“I was…” Stiles’ voice cracked; he winced and went on. “I wrote them, the poems, they were all for you.”

“All? I found—never mind.”

“So, Braeden? I heard you would hear the suit of no man until you’d mourned seven years.” Everyone in the room turned to look at Cora, leaned so casually against the door frame one might think she’d grown there. Stiles, for his part, left the two women to it and instead took the opportunity to hide his red face in Derek’s shoulder.

“That’s true…”

“What about the suit of a woman?”

At that, Stiles looked up. Cora had moved closer, stood with one hip cocked and an impish grin teasing at her mouth. Frankly, she looked nothing short of lethal.

Laura broke in, “Cora, you’re too—”

“I’m as old as Stiles, and you practically threw him Derek to _mate_ just now! I’m only asking if she’s interested!” Cora shook off the alpha’s glare and turned back to face Braeden, taking another step toward the woman as she did. “How about it?”

“Maybe we could start with a walk in the orchards?”

Cora nodded, once, and pulled Braeden from the room and down the hall.

A cough sounded from just outside the door. “Alpha Hale?”

“Enter.”

The head of the town guard stepped in, the curly-haired man who’d called out to Stiles earlier stumbling in his chains behind him and looking even muddier and more bedraggled than before. “This is the man you wanted?”

“Indeed. Thank you, Ackerley. Captain Lahey, is it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” His eyes darted back and forth, Scott to Stiles to Scott again, but he spoke only to the alpha.

“I don’t recall meeting you, but I’m told I banished you from Hale lands. Can you fill me in?”

“Yes, Alpha. I was docked here looking for a new crew, several years back now, and your uncle challenged me to a duel and informed me if I didn’t show, I’d be banished forever. He specified a human duel, but—and no offense meant—I didn’t trust him and had no wish to brawl with a werewolf, so I left.”

“And why did he challenge you?”

“I believe he objected to my choosing a crew here, Alpha.”

“I see. Well, I think we’re safe letting you back in, then. Please unlock him and take your leave, Ackerley. Captain. Can I show you a bath, a change of clothes, as tokens of our regret?”

Isaac’s shoulder relaxed ever so slightly as the cuffs fell away and Laura’s words sank in. “Please. But first,” he turned to look at Scott, looking older than the fine lines on his face suggested, “I traveled a long way to check on my friend, and he is not looking well. Could we…”

“Of course. Call me if you need anything, Scott. I imagine you’ll have quite a few questions. You’ve noticed your increased hearing, I’m sure; I’ll be able to hear you if you speak up. Don’t be shy.” With that, Laura left.

Stiles rocked onto the balls of his feet to whisper into Derek’s ear, but before he could say anything, Scott spoke. His voice was soft. Hesitant.

“Isaac. Why did you come back?”

“I worried for your safety.” He didn’t have the voice of a man who was glad of his choices. He sounded like a man whose hand had been forced, and who mourned his own actions.

“You put your life at risk for me.”

“Stiles.” Derek’s voice was barely a whisper. “We should go.”

“Hn?”

“We should go.”

“O- _oh_.”

#

**Epilogue**

Stiles followed Derek out of Laura’s rooms and down the hall, but they’d only gone a couple meters when Derek abruptly stopped walking. “Stiles, I found another poem, in the couch—anyway, it was…”

“Dude!” Stiles hissed. “Not in the hallway!” He started walking faster, hoping Derek would drop it, hoping he wasn’t blushing too much. Hoping it wasn’t the poem he thought it was. “Wait. Did you read the whole thing?”

“More than once.”

“Oh, no.”

“No, Stiles, it’s alright, I lik—”

“Not in the hallway!” Thinking he should follow his own advice, for once, Stiles grabbed Derek’s hand and tugged him towards his rooms at a quick clip. It only took a minute or two, probably, but Stiles’ pulse beat fear-fast in his throat the whole time.

Until they got into the room and Stiles found himself pressed against the latched door, caught between Derek’s thick forearms as Derek tilted his head down and asked, “Stiles. Not as my valet or my servant or anything, just as two people—can I kiss you?”

“Yes, De—” but the rest of Stiles’ answer was swallowed by Derek’s kiss, Stiles’ first kiss, nothing more than their mouths brushing together. Derek’s lips were hot and dry against his own, the soft brush of his top lip, the deeper pressure of his full bottom lip.

Stiles gasped and his hands came up to grasp at Derek’s arms, his shoulders, and his body arched up away from the door without his permission, pressing itself against the broad bulk of Derek’s torso.

Derek didn’t take the opportunity to deepen the kiss, though, didn’t open his mouth or fuck into Stiles’ mouth with his tongue, as Stiles suddenly, badly wanted—needed—him to do. Stiles whined, high in throat, and mumbled into the kiss, “Please, sir, I—”

“Stiles, no, I don’t want to be your employer now—”

Stiles shook his head to clear it enough to speak semi-coherently. “I’m not doing this because of that. I want this. But I, I like… calling you that. Letting you be in charge.” He bit his lip nervously and looked up at Derek. “Like with the shaving. Is that. Is that okay?”

Derek’s pupils widened visibly, in surprise and—Stiles hoped—interest, and he brought one hand up to cradle the back of Stiles’ head. “Stiles. Sweetheart. That’s so much more than okay.”

Derek moved in for another kiss, deeper and longer and wetter than before, and Stiles let himself get lost in it for long minutes before he dragged himself out it, hating that he was breaking the kiss but needing to ask one more thing. “And you got, right, that I’m not like other boys? In the, you know…” Stiles’ words trailed off as he glared in the general direction of his hips.

“I know.”

“And it doesn’t—you don’t mind?”

“Stiles. I like men. I like _you._ You say you’re a man, and I would not presume to correct you about your own identity or own your body. Whatever your body looks like, however is comfortable for you, I want you, Stiles; I have since that first morning.” Derek finished his little speech in a rough voice, almost a growl, that sent trills of want curling through Stiles’ abdomen, and pulled the boy close enough that Stiles could feel… _oh._ Derek wasn’t lying.

“Can we—couch?”

“Have you ever done this before?”

Stiles blushed. “No. Does it matter?”

“Not like you’re thinking, no, but I’d like us to take our time. If you don’t mind. Lay you down on my bed, undress you as far as you’ll let me, show you how slow and how good it can be.”

Stiles found himself abruptly, immensely grateful that Derek’s hands were on him, holding him steady. His watery knees certainly weren’t helping anything. The only word he could manage was a breathy, “Yeah,” but it must have been enough because next thing he found himself Derek’s arms, cradled against Derek’s chest, being carried into the bedroom and deposited gently onto the pillows. Then Derek was on top of him, around him, drowning him in gentle kisses but not touching him anywhere else.

That wouldn’t do.

Stiles ran a splayed hand down Derek’s spine and spread his legs, hooked one calf over Derek’s thighs and did his best to pull their bodies flush.

Derek just chuckled into the kiss and didn’t allow himself to be moved. “Next time,” he whispered, “next time I promise we’ll do this however you want. Let me spoil you just this once, boy.”

“Yes, sir,” Stiles moaned, trembling with want already, just from the press of his clothed ankle on Derek’s clothed knee.

“How much do you want me to take off?”

“It really doesn’t bother you?”

“No, Stiles.”

“My, um, I have some bindings. On my chest. Everything else though. That can all come off.”

Derek nuzzled into Stiles’ shoulder. “Thank you, sweetheart. If keeping your wraps on is naked for you, it’s naked to me too. So good for me.” He slithered down the bed until he knelt between Stiles’ still wide-open legs and ran his hands up Stiles’ thighs, under his shirt. He exposed a thin strip of stomach and kissed it, trailing open-mouthed kisses from one hip to the other. “Biting?”

“Huh?”

“Do you like biting?”

“Let’s find out.” Derek closed his teeth over Stiles’ iliac crest, slowly, deliberately, and Stiles keened and arched up off the bed. “Fuck fuck _fuck,_ that is a definite yes on biting.”

“Good.” Derek pushed Stiles’ shift up further, nosing after it, covering his abdomen in licks and kisses little nips.

“More, Derek, please.” Stiles had a brief moment of hating his voice, high and needy to his own ears, but then Derek was urging him up, pulling his shirt off, laying him back down.

And staring.

Staring at him like he was a safe dock in a rough storm, a tall glass of water on a hot day.

Stiles had had plenty of conflicts with his own body over the years, but he couldn’t bring a single one to mind, not now, not with Derek’s eyes raking over him like that, like he was something precious, something worthy.

It was all too much, really, so Stiles pulled Derek up into another kiss, as much for a reason to close his eyes as anything else.

“Stiles. I want to make you come. Get you naked and suck you til you scream. Can I?”

Stiles tried to answer, but the only noise he could manage was a long, ragged groan. He hissed in a breathe and tried again. “Fuck, Derek. Sir. Please.” He had to hold his breath, worried the slightest illusion on his part would spoil the illusion, the vision of Derek Hale kneeling between his legs, pulling his hose off his legs and staring at the juncture of Stiles’ thighs with undisguised hunger writ large across his face.

Stiles squirmed under that hot gaze. “You don’t have to.” He shifted, trying to close his legs, but Derek’s sturdy body was in the way, preventing him.

“I promise you, boy, there is nothing I want more right now. And I am going to. But not yet.” Derek’s hands closed around his ankles, slid up to his knees, and spread him somehow wider. He’d never been so exposed, so vulnerable, before. The feeling at once was an uncomfortable itch and a cool, sweet relief.

Derek curled further into himself, flattening against the bed, and rubbed his bearded cheek against the hard swell of Stiles’ calf. “Oh god, Derek, please, please,” Stiles babbled, no idea what he was even asking for.

“Ssh, ssh, it’s okay.” Derek turned his head and planted a line of firm kisses on Stiles’ leg, his knee up to his hip and then, cruelly, skipping right over where Stiles needed it—needed anything—the most, and continued on on the other leg. “You have no idea how good you smell right now, sweetheart,” he cooed. “You can wait, can’t you? You can be good for me?”

“Uh-huh,” he keened. “I can—anything, please.” Derek nuzzled again, so high up his nose brushed the crease of Stiles’ thigh, and the boy sobbed out, “More, oh god, sir, I need, I need.” His torso arched up off the bed, his eyes clenched shut, he felt his own wetness slipping out of him, slicking his not only his thighs but also the blanket beneath him.

Derek was murmuring something, but he couldn’t begin to separate the sounds into distinct words; something brushed against his dick and he jack-knifed up, eyes flying open. It was the pad of Derek’s thumb, dry and rough, a heady counterpoint to the soaked-smooth skin of his glans.

“Ready?” Derek’s face was a scant half-inch from his hot, needy skin. Mouth open.

“So ready, so ready, please.” He stayed propped up on his elbows, trying to watch, but couldn’t stop his head from sagging back to loll against his shoulders as Derek’s mouth closed around him. His eyes rolled up when Derek applied suction and time wasn’t his strong suit just then, he knew that, but still, it must have been mere seconds before he wailed, “Fingers, fingers inside, now, now,” just in time to clench down on Derek’s hand and slick his beard with come.

Stiles collapsed back against the mattress, sweaty and shivering, and couldn’t bring himself to move when Derek climbed up the bed and gathered him into his arms; he grumbled contentedly and laid there, all jumbled limbs and racing blood, as his body returned to him.

“You back, baby?”

“Mmng. I think? Never come that hard in my fucking life.” Stiles rocked back just enough to see the smug smile spreading across Derek’s face. “So now what?”

“What do you want, sweet boy?”

“Hmm…” Stiles rolled onto his side, considering. “You’re still wearing all these clothes. That’s definitely gonna get in the way of me getting my mouth all over you. And then… I think I’d like you inside me.”

Derek’s eyes flashed gold for a moment before he got himself under control. “Whatever you want,” he managed, voice hoarse.

Stiles slithered to the floor to kneel beside Derek. “So I can undress you?”

Derek struggled to sit up, legs dangling off the bed. “Y—yes. You may.”

Stiles looked up from under his eyelashes, a wicked smile glinting on his face. “Thank you, sir,” he purred, falsely demure from his head to his toes. “I can hardly believe you tumbled me without even bothering to take off your shoes,” he chided, pulling off the offending articles. “You even got on your nice clean bed with them still on. You must have been raised by wolves.”

Derek groaned low in his throat as Stiles’ long fingers moved up to pull nimbly at his breeches. “No dog jokes now, Stiles, please. I wanted to see you, given over, lost in pleasure.”

“Done and done. My turn now.” Stiles tugged the hose and breeches off as one, hardly allowing himself to look at all that freshly-bared skin for fear of being distracted, stood just long enough to yank Derek’s shirt and doublet roughly off, and sank back to his knees. At last, he took Derek’s cock in his hand, jacked it once and then a second time, just to get a feel for things. “And, you know, I’ve never done this before, so feel free to, uh, any pointers or anything.”

Derek opened his mouth, probably to say something reassuring, but his jaws snapped shut abruptly when Stiles licked curiously at the head. It didn’t taste so much different than his own fluids, at least so far, and he hummed in enjoyment as he lapped at the slit.

“You can only come once, right?” The vague grunt above him sounded more or less affirmative, so he plowed on, “Let me know before you do, then.” Those pesky details settled, Stiles set to his task with a will, first opening his mouth just enough to suck loosely on the head, tonguing curiously at the foreskin until it slid back behind the corona.

“S’good, Stiles, it’s good…”

He gave a muffled little noise of agreement and relaxed his bottom jaw to take more of Derek into his mouth, drawing little curlicues along the underside with the pointed tip of his tongue as he did so. He felt clumsy, uncoordinated, bobbing down with no real idea of what he was doing, but Derek’s unsteadying panting, punctuated by choked-off groans, was nothing if not encouraging. It wasn’t long before Derek’s cock nudged against the back of his throat and he swallowed experimentally.

“Oh goddess, goddess, Stiles, you have to stop.”

A little regretfully, Stiles pulled off Derek and clambered back onto the bed. “Good?”

“Uh-uh.” Derek looked dazed, dizzy even, and Stiles preened.

“I’ll get better,” Stiles remarked, faux-casual, as he straddled Derek’s lap. “Practice and all.”

“I’ll die.”

“Werewolves are hard to kill. I’m sure you’ll survive.” He ground down against Derek, wet on wet, and moaned a little. “You gonna fuck me now?”

“Where?”

“What? Oh.” Stiles felt himself blush, suddenly, everything they’d done catching up to him at once. “Is, uh, is up front okay? For now, at least. I’ve only ever fingered myself there, and—”

His words were swallowed in Derek’s fierce kiss, one of the man’s hands coming up to tangle in his hair as the other came to rest on his hip. “Yes, Stiles,” Derek mumbled. “However, wherever, I don’t care, just want you…”

Stiles brought his hands up to clutch at Derek’s chest and, he was proud to say, only got distracted by the feel of coarse hair and flexing muscle under his palms for a minute or two before he pushed himself back to stutter out, “I, uh, I’ve never—how should we?”

“Can do it just like this. Give you more control, make sure I don’t hurt you by accident.”

Stiles gulped at that, his dry throat clicking uncomfortably, but managed to get it together enough to quip, “Gonna give me your dick, sir? Let me do what I want with it?”

“Y-yeah, Stiles. Take it, c’mon.”

And then Derek’s big hands were under him, grabbing his thighs, his hips, lifting him up. “You know… I think I like getting manhandled like that.”

“Next time,” Derek promised, moving one hand down to steady the base of his cock. “Go on, then.”

Stiles rocked his hips until he felt the head of Derek’s dick against his entrance. He was so wet, slick and swollen with need, that it almost slipped in without any help from him at all. He flexed his thighs and sank down, screamed when Derek popped into him all at once—a childhood of sneaking horses from the stable to race Scott through the woods had taken care of his hymen, thank god, but it was still fuller than he’d ever been—and he froze, legs trembling with the effort of holding him still as Derek crooned soothingly in his ear, stroked gently down his back.

“It’s okay, sweet boy. All the time you need, don’t worry. There’s no rush.”

“S’good, s’good, so much, god, Derek,” Stiles tried to reassure his lover, overwhelmed and incoherent though he was.

His legs gave, and he sank down, further and further. He lost the thread of place and time, lost track of everything but Derek’s eyes spanning his vision, Derek’s hands digging bruises into his hips, Derek’s cock filling every empty place he never knew he had.

His throat was raw from yelling, he’d lost count of the peaks in his pleasure, his lungs and legs both burned from exertion, before Derek gasped against his ear, “Stiles, I’m gonna, I’m gonna come.”

Stiles coiled the last of his strength to clench his pelvic muscles, fingers scrabbling helplessly at Derek’s shoulders, as he begged, “Do it, in me, sir, please,” in the last moments before his vision whited out, his body exploding in climax as Derek’s molten release spilled deep inside him.

#

The sun had started to sink, bedroom filling with stretching shadows before Stiles spoke again. “Everyone heard that, huh?”

“Sweet boy. Even humans could’ve heard that. Don’t worry, though, ‘wolf packs don’t really have those kinds of boundaries.”

**Author's Note:**

> Can I just say how said I am I didn’t find a way to work in the “Two faults, madonna…” speech? Because it’s my favorite and everyone should love it with me.
> 
> http://shakespeare.mit.edu/twelfth_night/twelfth_night.1.5.html


End file.
